Review: Beachwood Brewing Citraholic IPA

Beachwood Brewing is a Long Beach-based outfit we’ve covered before, a BBQ restaurant that recently moved into bottling its own brews.

Citraholic is its west coast IPA, focused on Citra hops but also including Warrior, Columbus, and Simcoe in the mix.

Despite the heavy use of Citra, the beer isn’t particularly citrusy. Rather, an intense earthiness fills the palate with notes of mushroom, tea leaves, and some bay leaf notes. A largely expected piney character works as more of a finishing move here, leaving what ought to be a crisp and brisk brew a bit muddy in the end. That said, some of the more unusual herbal elements that pop up from time to time make Citraholic more interesting than it otherwise might have been.